Second Time Around
by ManicMoonfrogs
Summary: Harry unknowingly wishes for his life to be normal, but will he really like how thing turn out when everything happens over again?


It was a rather chilly, wet spring afternoon, and Harry was walking down the Charms corridor on his way back to Gryffindor Tower after Quidditch practice. It was perfectly quiet, a nice change from the rowdy sports pitch with the shouting team-mates and heckling Slytherins, yelling abuse at the Gryffindor team left right and centre. Harry let his mind wander, until he was snapped abruptly back into reality by a sudden flash of light. It startled him so much he lost his balance completely, ending up sprawled out on his front on the floor.

"Harry!" he heard someone exclaim. "Are you alright?"

"Who… what?" asked Harry, confused, pushing himself up off the ground. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and saw Colin Creevey standing over him with his old Muggle camera clutched to his chest, a worried expression on his face.

"Are you hurt?" asked the boy, kneeling down next to Harry.

"No, I'm okay." said Harry. "Why did you just randomly take a picture of me?"

"To show my dad!" said Colin excitedly. "I want to be able to show him everything about Hogwarts, and you're famous, Harry, nobody in my family's _ever_ known anyone _famous_ before!"

"Okay, I suppose," said Harry, standing up. Colin jumped up off the floor.

"Can I take another one, since that will have been a really bad picture?" he asked, practically jumping with excitement. _How much energy can you possibly have, kid?_ Thought Harry. _What is _up_ with you?_

"Can you do it later, Colin?" asked Harry. "I need to get back to Gryffindor Tower."

"Oh, I'm going there too!" piped Colin. "I'm in Gryffindor as well."

"I know," muttered Harry, racking his brains for a way out of spending a solid ten minutes walking through corridors with Colin Creevey.

"So, let's go!" said a very excited Colin. Groaning internally, Harry set off, Colin right there next to him. Within a few minutes, Harry had listened to so much of Colin's ramblings that he knew his father was a milkman, his mother and aunt Julianne ran a bakery business together and his younger brother, Dennis, was a First-Year Gryffindor.

Finally, after what seemed to be hours rather than minutes, they arrived outside the Tower.

"And we live in this little village, hardly much bigger than Hogsmeade, except it's a Muggle place, obviously, and everything's –"

"Fortuna Major," said Harry to the Fat Lady, cutting Colin off mid-sentence. She swung open, and the two boys were about to step inside when Colin stopped.

"Wait," he said. "Dennis!"

Harry looked up, and saw two small boys standing a little way down the corridor, a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff, although at the rate things seemed to be going he would soon look like a Gryffindor due to the blood running down his chin and staining his robes a scarlet red.

"He ate a sweet and now his nose has been bleeding for fifteen minutes solid!" called Dennis.

"Fred and George's Nosebleed Nougat," muttered Harry. He decided _not_ to tell Hermione that the twins seemed to be handing out their products to First-Years.

"Oh, I know a spell to fix it!" exclaimed Colin, rushing over to Dennis and his friend.

"Wait," said Harry, fishing inside his pocket, sure that he had a Nosebleed Nougat on him somewhere. He fished out two sweets, one orange and one purple, and tossed the purple one to Colin. "Give him that."

Before Colin had the chance to reply, Harry rushed inside, the Fat Lady swinging closed behind him.

"Hey, Harry." said Romilda Vane brightly, coming out of nowhere. "How did practice go?"

"Alright, I guess," said Harry, a little confused that someone he didn't even know was asking him about Quidditch practice.

"You're Seeker, right?" asked Romilda.

"Yeah," said Harry.

"You catch the Flinch, then." she said.

"Um, the _Snitch_, yeah." he replied.

"Oh, right!" giggled Romilda, ignoring Harry's utterly bewildered look. "I'm not really that good with sport."

"Um, could I maybe get past, please?" asked Harry. Romilda crossed her arms and gave a little huff before stepping aside. Harry hurried off in the direction of his dormitory, not looking back at the girl who had so obviously just tried to flirt with him.

"Hi, Harry." said a friendly voice as Harry entered the boys' dorm. He didn't have to look to see who was speaking, as Harry didn't really know all that many people with a broad Dublin accent.

"Hi, Seamus." replied Harry, flopping down on his bed.

"How'd practice go?" asked Seamus, a big Quidditch fan.

"Good." he replied.

"How many goals did Wood let in, eh?" asked Seamus.

"A couple." said Harry.

"You work on any new techniques?" he asked.

"Not really." said Harry.

"What did you do down there for two hours, then?" asked Seamus jokingly.

"Practiced stuff." said Harry, burying his face in the pillow.

"What's bothering you, Harry?" asked Seamus.

"It's nothing." muttered Harry.

"Well, something's gotten into you when you're not willing to talk about Quidditch!" said Seamus.

"Look, Seamus, I'm cold and I'm wet and some kid in Second Year just drove me crazy for ages and then some girl I don't even know decided she _really_ _badly_ wanted to talk to me and wouldn't let me leave," said Harry. "I'm just annoyed."

"Hate to break it to you, Harry, but you're going to have to learn to deal with people always wanting to talk to you." said Seamus. "You're the Boy who Lived. You're practically famous. And to the First Years, the Muggleborns _especially_, this whole _thing_ is a crazy other world, and you're like the fairy-tale hero to them."

"But I'm _not_." said Harry. "I'm just… me."

"Aye, you're just plain old Harry Potter," smirked Seamus. "Nothing special about you, nothing _whatsoever_."

Harry rolled his eyes and buried his face further down in the pillow.

"I'll see you later, Harry." said Seamus before he got up, shouldered his schoolbag and left the dorm.

A few minutes later, Ron arrived. "Hey, Harry," he said.

"Hi." he responded.

"Seamus told me you're not in a good mood." said Ron.

"Leave me alone." groaned Harry. "_Please_."

"Harry, it has to be said," said Ron. "You do sometimes seem rather ungrateful."

"For what, Ron?" asked Harry, sitting up.

"Well, people look up to you, you have loads of stuff you want," said Ron. "Even _girls_ like you!"

"Yeah, well, it's not all fun and games, Ron." snapped Harry.

"Whatever." replied Ron. "I'll see you later."

"Bye." said Harry, pulling the curtains shut on his bed. He picked up his wand, and turned it over a few times in his hands.

"I wish none of this had ever happened," he said to himself. "I wish my parents had never died, then I wouldn't be anything special. I'd just be like anyone else. I wish it would all just happen over again, but _different_ this time. This time round, I don't want my parents to be killed. I want to be _normal_."

A few bright blue sparks shot out from the tip of his wand. _Nothing unusual_, he thought. _Just some involuntary magic. Professor Lupin said it happens sometimes. No big deal._

With that thought, he set his wand aside and lay down, and quickly slipped into sleep.

* * *

><p>AN – Hope you liked it! Please leave a review, I'm not going to post chapter two until I get five!


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